1. Field of the Invention:
The present invention relates to a slider for opening and closing a slide fastener to be mainly used for clothes, shoes, baggages and the like articles and particularly to a construction for pivotally joining a pull tab with a slider body of the slider of the kind described above.
2. Description of the Prior Art:
U.S. Pat. No. 2,657,445 issued November 3, 1953 discloses a conventional slider of the type above described. As shown in FIG. 8 of the drawings appended hereto, such a slider comprises a slider body having a pair of front and rear studs A, B protuberantly provided at the front and rear ends, respectively, on the upper surface thereof, a pull tab C for manipulating the slider, a cap-like yoke D having a pair of side walls having the respective cut-outs therein, one formed in each of the opposite side walls thereof, and mounted on the slider body with the pivotal portion of the pull tab C pivotally received in the cut-outs. The front and rear studs A, B have in the outer surfaces of their respective opposite sides walls the respective pairs of engaging recesses a, a; b, b. The cap-like yoke D includes a pair of side walls having engaging tongue E, E; F, F at their respective front and rear ends. The cap-like yoke D further includes a flat spring portion G extending downwardly from the front end thereof and supported on the slider body so as to normally urge the cap-like yoke D into locking disposition where a locking prong provided at the rear end of the cap-like yoke D comes into locking engagement with fastener elements to lock the slider. The engaging tongues E, E; F, F of the cap-like yoke D are brought into engagement with the engaging recesses a, a; b, b in the front and rear studs A, B; with the outer surfaces of the side walls of the cap-like yoke D held flush with the outer surfaces of the side walls of the studs A, B; so that the pull tab C is pivotally joined with the slider body by means of the cap-like yoke D.
Such a conventional slider, however, has drawbacks in that, since the cap-like yoke having the pivotal portion of the pull tab received in the cut-outs thereof is snapped into engagement with the studs on the slider body with the outer surface of the cap-like yoke held flush with the outer surfaces of the studs, the cap-like yoke is liable to get easily detached from the slider body, whereby the proper function of the slider would be impaired and the cap-like yoke and the pull tab thus detached would be prone to be lost.
Furthermore, if such a conventional slider were of the automatically locking type, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,657,445, assembling operation of the slider body, the pull tab and the cap-like yoke would be very difficult; since, for the assemblage, the rear engaging tongues of the cap-like yoke are first pressed from the front into engagement with the engaging recesses in the rear stud, and thereafter, the front engaging tongues of the cap-like yoke are depressed into snapping engagement with the engaging recesses of the front stud with the flat spring portion G inserted into a hole formed in the front end of the slider body.
Still furthermore, since the locking prong is provided as an extension extending contiguously downwardly from one of the side walls of the cap-like yoke which side wall is flush with the outer surfaces of the studs, the locking prong falls so far away from the coupling points where adjacent coupling heads of mating element rows are coupled so that it fails to accomplish sufficient locking effect. Even if the locking prong could be bent inwardly of the cap-like yoke or towards the coupling points so as to obtain sufficient locking effect, this would disadvantageously entail increased steps for assemblage and would be much more liable to lead to ununiformity in the form of resultant sliders.